The Rooster Summer Reading Challenge: Week 12
This week, we finish up our sixth and final book of the summer, Fever Dream, and it's your turn to tell us which of our summer reads wins a slot in the 2018 Tournament of Books.
Archive
A collection of 14227 issues
David Bowie's television commercials are a cultural history of the past 50 years
From a flower child's ice-cream pitch to an austere, bedroom-eyes sake ad to a celebrity-heavy XFM spot, David Bowie's appearances in television commercials astutely picked up on the trends of their times.
August 22, 2017
Trump’s Afghanistan strategy resembles Obama’s. But by avoiding details on numbers, he may save political face. / The New York Times With President Bannon gone and the generals in charge, there’s no one to disrupt Afghanistan escalation. / The New York Times Britain’s National Grid warns that homes
Not even talking about that Trump eclipse photo.
Trump's Afghanistan strategy mostly resembles Obama's. Though by avoiding details on troop numbers or what success looks like, he may hope to avoid backlash from his supporters. Time and again, Bannon disrupted attempts to escalate in Afghanistan. Now that he's gone, Trump is listening
Drawing with shadows
Artist Guy Larsen uses the shadows from a crumpled sheet of paper to inspire a set of illustrations. (via This Is Colossal)
August 21, 2017
Last night, with little notice, the University of Texas at Austin removed four Confederate statues. / The Texas Tribune How to watch the today’s solar eclipse online from anywhere, without special glasses or nervous wildlife. / Quartz The next total solar eclipse for the US happens in 2024, giving Carbondale, Ill.
August 19, 2017
“It’s good to be alone, for a few hours to be exempt from all the complicated bonds, all the conflicts, great and small, all the demands and expectations, wills and desires that build up between people.” Karl Ove Knausgård tells his newborn what makes life worth living. / The Guardian
And whiskers on kittens.
The president and first lady announce they won't attend the Kennedy Center Honors in December, one day after the entire Arts and Humanities Committee resigned—in a letter that spelled "RESIST" with the first letter of each paragraph. Bannon's departure marks the eighth top
The definitive sound of the '80s were gated-reverb drums
From "In the Air Tonight" to "Kiss" to, well, this week, the definitive sound of the '80s were gated-reverb drums. From Vox's Estelle Caswell, a history of the happy accident that begat the effect, all the wonderful ways it's been
Is the curtain closing on showtime?
Arrested 14 times while performing, "showtime" dancer Michael Brundage made it into an Intel video. While he put himself through a year of Brooklyn College on tips, he says gentrification is quashing artistry and erasing a viable job market. "We need to decriminalize it. Because while they